A carbon nanotube is a substance in which a carbon atom is bonded to neighboring three carbon atoms, these bonded carbon atoms forming a hexagonal ring with other adjacent bonded carbon atoms and such rings being repeated in a honeycomb pattern to form a sheet which rolls into a cylindrical tube.
Such carbon nanotubes may have a diameter ranging from several angstroms (Å) to several nanometers (nm), with the length ranging from ten-folds to thousand-folds of the diameter. Extensive studies have been carried out on the synthesis of carbon nanotubes since these nanotubes have a morphological feature as described above and excellent thermal, mechanical and electrical characteristics originating from their chemical bonding. It is now expected that utilization of carbon nanotubes having these characteristics would lead to the development of numerous products which still face the technical limitation of the existing materials, and to the impartation of new, previously unpossessed characteristics to developed products.
For the synthesis of carbon nanotubes, various techniques have been proposed, including arc discharge, laser evaporation, thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD), catalytic synthesis, plasma synthesis and the like [See U.S. Pat. No. 5,424,054 (arc discharge); Chem. Phys. Lett. 243, 1-12(1995) (laser evaporation); Science, 273: 483-487(1996) (laser evaporation); U.S. Pat. No. 6,210,800 (catalytic synthesis); U.S. Pat. No. 6,221,330 (gaseous phase synthesis); WO 00/26138 (gaseous phase synthesis)]. In these methods, carbon nanotubes are synthesized under severe reaction conditions, for example, at high temperatures of several hundred degrees to several thousand degrees in Celsius, or in vacuum. Further, the type of reaction used is a batch-type reaction, instead of a continuous flow type reaction, such that continuous preparation of carbon nanotubes is impossible, and only small amounts of carbon nanotubes are produced in batch reactions.
Accordingly, said methods have the problem of facing limitation in mass production of nanotubes at low costs, and therefore it is desired to develop a suitable process for the gas-phase synthesis, especially a process for continuous synthesis which is industrially useful.
The Oakridge National Laboratory and R. E. Smalley et al of Rice University in the United States reported respectively processes for the synthesis of carbon nanotubes in the gaseous phase. In these gas-phase synthetic processes, an organometallic compound in which a transition metal is bound to an organic compound in the molecular level, such as ferrocene or iron pentacarbonyl, is introduced in the solid state into a reactor as a catalyst promoting the synthesis of carbon nanotubes. As shown in the above-mentioned prior art, the conventional processes for the gas-phase synthesis of carbon nanotubes are carried out in a reactor that is divided into two reaction zones. A catalytic metal precursor is first introduced in the solid state to the first reaction zone where the precursor is vaporized in the molecular level by gradual heating. The vaporized catalytic metal molecules are transferred to the second reaction zone which is maintained at a higher temperature, where the molecules are subjected to pyrolysis so that the metal atoms form ultrafine particles. These ultrafine particles aggregate, while colliding into each other, to form fine particles, and then the fine metal particles may be used as the catalyst for the growth of carbon nanotubes. However, it has been reported that the particles are required to have a certain size, preferably of nanometers, in order to function as a catalyst [See U.S. Pat. No. 6,221,330 or WO 00/26138].
However, in the conventional gaseous synthesis methods for carbon nanotubes, catalyst particles form irregularly in the reactor, and thus it is practically impossible to expect uniform growth of catalyst particles in controlled size. Moreover, as transition metals differ from each other in their physical properties, it is difficult to prepare nanometer-sized catalyst particles comprising two or more transition metal species and having uniform composition and controlled size. Consequently, it is extremely difficult or hardly possible to produce characterized carbon nanotubes comprising two or more transition metals in uniform composition. Furthermore, since it is impossible to control the particle size and metal composition of catalytic metals in the conventional gas-phase synthetic processes, it is difficult to produce carbon nanotubes of high purity. In particular, the process suggested by Smalley et al. has a drawback that the reaction should be carried out at elevated pressures.
The inventors of the present invention have discovered that carbon nanotubes can be produced by suspending nanometer-sized fine metal particles in a gaseous phase as a metal catalyst which has the greatest influence on the properties of carbon nanotubes produced and simultaneously supplying a carbon source, and that most of the problems faced by the conventional gas-phase synthetic processes as described above can be overcome by this novel method.
According to the present invention, (a) since the particle size and composition of the catalyst are pre-determined, the shape and structure of the carbon nanotubes produced thereby can be more easily controlled; (b) since the catalyst as well as the carbon source can be supplied continuously, continuous mass production of carbon nanotubes is possible; (c) since the carbon source is supplied together with the catalytic metal nanoparticles, the process itself can be simplified; and (d) since the reaction process is carried out in mild conditions, the carbon nanotubes or nanofibers having a variety of shapes, structures and properties can be prepared easily at reasonable costs. Conclusively, the process of the present invention is industrially very promising.